Revision3 uses Bittorrent to help distribute their shows across the web by running their own tracker which coordinates the sharing and downloading of their content. Despite this perfectly legal and legitimate practice, MediaDefender set their sights on Revision3's servers and flooded them with SYN packets, effectively shutting them down.

What's even stranger is that MediaDefender didn't even bother to spoof the packets they sent - each one was easily traceable. As Jim Louderback explains it on the Rev3 blog, "it's as if they wanted us to know who they were."

The real question now is who hired MediaDefender to do this damage? The company acts on behalf of its clients, who in the past have included Sony, Universal Music, the RIAA, and the MPAA. One can only imagine that today's list of old media companies fearing Revision3's success is a mile long.

Once Louderback determined MediaDefender was behind the attack, he got on the phone to the ArtistDirect interim CEO Dimitri Villard (MediaDefender is a subsidiary of Artist Direct) and Ben Grodsky, Vice President of Operations at Media Defender. Villard admitted that MediaDefender had been abusing Revision3's network for months, allowing them to use the tracking server to point to non-Revision3 files. When Rev3 noticed that and began to de-authorize those rogue files, it set off the flood of SYN packets which were attempting to reconnect to the files stored on the company's servers. Although Grodsky admits that his servers sent the packets, he claimed it was only every three hours. Rev3's logs show 8,000+ packets per second.

Why Hasn't MediaDefender Been Shut Down?

To sum up, MediaDefender was using Revision3's server without approval, they appear to be lying about the level of the attack, and they had no business attacking Revision3 in the first place since the company runs a legitimate business that just happens to use Bittorrent as a distribution technology.

In the end, Louderback concludes "I don't think Media Defender deliberately targeted Revision3 specifically...the company has a history of using their servers to launch denial of service attacks against distributors. They saw us as a "distributor"..." We're not so sure, but it looks like it's now going to be up to the FBI to sort it out, since they have been contacted and are now involved.

Ultimately, the situation again brings to light the very questionable business tactics of MediaDefender itself. If traditional media companies are using MediaDefender as a hired gun to attack "illegal" filesharing networks and a side effect of those attacks is the takedown of a legitimate business, then it's time this information was publicly revealed and addressed in a court of law. Enough with the vigilante tactics - it's time MediaDefender was shut down for good themselves.

1. Not all P2P downloading is illegal. Some people may be downloading a digital copy of an album or single that they own, a practice called format-shifting that the recording industry has said they won't sue for (and theoretically exists within fair use guidelines).
2. Do the numbers include fake MediaDefender files people are downloading? If a person downloads 5 fake tracks before finding the one they're looking for, is that 6 downloads or 1?
3. Some people download solely to improve share ratio on BitTorrent sites, but don't actually have any desire for the files they're downloading.
4. People are obsessed with discographies and might download an entire set of albums when they really only want one or two songs.

I would add that there is a fifth reason that TorrentFreak failed to mention, which is perhaps the most important reason why illegal downloads don't equate to lost sales. People download music they wouldn't pay for. Not all of the music people download from P2P networks is music that they would buy in stores or via legit download sites were the downloading option not available. Many times people download music that they hear in passing simply because they can, but not because they like it enough to buy it (in fact, it is precisely that they don't like it enough to buy it -- just enough to hear a few more times -- that they download via Kazaa or BitTorrent instead of pay for it).

In fact, I'd go so far as to guess that the majority of music people download via P2P networks is not music they would buy in stores. Further, a recent study showed that P2P downloading actually leads to more purchases of CDs in stores. We've set up a poll below to test that theory. For anyone who has ever downloaded music illegally via a P2P network, please respond to the anonymous poll below.

There was one thing the IFPI definitely got right in their annual report. "Progress in the digital music market is being hampered by lack of interoperability between services and devices," they wrote (emphasis mine), hinting that DRM that ties consumers to a specific devices or service is bad for the industry. This is something that consumers have long been aware of, and that the record labels are finally starting to catch on to.